Anti-inflammatory and heat shock protein-inhibiting nanoplatform for synergetic cancer chemo/photothermal therapy.

Photothermal therapy is a novel and promising method for cancer treatment due to its controllable property, noninvasive nature, and high selectivity. Nevertheless, tumor recurrence of inflammatory response and tumor tolerance of heat shock protein over-expression remain serious challenges in current photothermal therapy. Additionally, the high dosage requirement of nanomaterial for optimal imaging and therapeutic effect would result in various side effects, organ excretion burdens, and long-term accumulation in the body. In this work, RD/Qu nanoplatform is designed and prepared with near-infrared (NIR) absorbance, high photothermal conversion efficiency, and great chemotherapy effect for synergetic cancer chemo/photothermal therapy at an ultralow-dose. More importantly, both in vitro and in vivo studies demonstrate that it could decrease the expression of HSP70 to fight hyperthermia tumor tolerance and inhibit inflammatory factor COX-2 to suppress tumor recurrence. Therefore, the RD/Qu nanoparticles show excellent outcome in tumor ablation at a quite low dosage, providing a promising avenue for cancer treatment.